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Comment by mosselman | Hacker News Reader

Or you could teach your kids to clean up their toys themselves. Make it a fun game for example.

Set an example by putting away your own groceries as soon as you put them in the kitchen. Boom 5k saved.

Maybe they will grow up to not be the type of person who leaves all of their crap on the table of the university table after they are done studying.

To be clear: I am not shifting on you as a parent. I am making fun of owning robots to do the specific things you mentioned. Obviously if you are immobile in some sense it would be great to have a cleaning robot

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People used to say the same things about dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, powered lawn mowers, etc. Heck, one could imagine Og the caveperson lamenting that their kids don’t know how to drag stones properly anymore given that new fangled wheel invention. Don’t worry, we will find other ways to discipline and train our kids as tech marches forward.

The important part is that people know how to do the things - and that the things have to be done - without the equipment. I grew up with a dishwasher, but when I moved out I was without for five years. I didn't end up panicking and just did the manual washing up for five years.

I own a house now with a dishwasher; I don't NEED it, but it sure is convenient.

Anyway, when it comes to kids picking up their shit, the important part there is that they learn the importance of not living in a fucking tip. If they or a robot or the well-paid help does it, it doesn't really matter in the end as long as it gets done.

Anybody can learn how to do housework when and if they need it. Doing it as a child can instill a work ethic which is very useful, but there's no need to train them on how to do it.

You'd be surprised how many young adults are not aware of basic things like if your sink does not have a garbage disposal you should not dump large chunks of food down the drain, or that you should replace your dish sponge periodically. Certainly these are things that could be easily learned, but I do think there is a lack of awareness (or caring) about basic procedures on which cleaning products to use when, etc.

I have seen recent college grads go over a year without washing/changing their bed sheets. In one case I found a couple dead bugs under the sheets. It may be pure laziness but in that case they are also feigning ignorance.

It's similar to how we don't teach kids basic accounting or personal finance in high school and they graduate and find themselves in mountains of high interest cc debit and making bad financial decisions after another, because they can learn it on their own when they're adults.

Your point is valid, but I never pass up an opportunity for a fun fact, so: wheels are not nearly as old as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel

Part of any organism's objective is to do more with less. Being efficient is a predictor of success in nature. Being efficient provides you and your family with health and security.

Obviously this evolutionary bias has gone a little off the rails with humans and we now have health and psychological problems as a result of efficiencies. I guess that's where self governance kicks in, unlike other organisms we can reason and adapt in spite of our fundamental evolutionary programming. Whether or not this evolutionary experiment works out is still yet to be determined.

> People used to say the same things about dishwashers

I still say the same about dishwashers. In the time it takes me to sort things into what can and cannot safely go in the washer, scrape off the food residue, load the machine, and unload the machine, I can simply wash the dishes and stack them on a rack to dry.

Vacuum cleaners are useful but actually not very important in the kind of dwelling that the robot could inhabit because it will have to have flat floor with no carpets so a broom will do just as well (or a Roomba type cleaner).

Dishwashers have a quality effect like many things.

If you have an ineffective dishwasher, you have to do lots of prep before putting dishes in, exclude lots of things from getting washed, etc. That takes longer, plus you don't cycle it as often, so you might find that you need a dirty dish and need to wash it by hand.

A very effective dishwasher is one for which you don't need to prep the dishes (just put them in) and can handle most of what you need to wash. It takes less work to use, and cycles more frequently. You can also cycle more frequently by getting a smaller machine.

The opportunity to invest in effective appliances is one reason it's nice to own a home, as opposed to renting.

You can get effective appliances by renting more expensive units too. That was one of the requirements when my SO and I were looking for a new place. Big sink, nice appliances, etc. We're paying about double what we were at our old apartment, but the convenience is well worth it while we're still focusing on paying off school debt but we also want somewhere nice to live.

Especially in the age of COVID-19 in the US, I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a super cheap crappy apartment like we were before.

Bonus, we also spend a lot less on electricity! We moved into a new-ish apartment building and I can keep the AC on 70 in Texas and my bill is less than $40/mo. In my old apartment, I would keep it at 76 during the day and only move it to 72 right before bed to save money. Bills were regularly $100+. Modern construction has so much energy savings built in to code now that you could potentially save money by moving to a more expensive apartment in a new building.

If you actually had a simple hack that reliably made children clean up after themselves, and could somehow sell it for money without it being instantly pirated, you would make rather more billions of dollars than Aaron Edsinger's robot ever would.

There is no magic trick there, just stop being afraid of hurting their feelings by being assertive and making your expectations of their contribution to the household known.

How many kids do you have and how old are they?

“Why don’t people just tell their children what to do?”

Education ? /s :)

I specifically had children because they are like little robots.

Even if you're not immobile it would be great to have a cleaning robot. Hiring housekeepers is a thing. Do you actually enjoy cleaning?

> Or you could teach your kids to clean up their toys themselves. [...] To be clear: I am not shifting on you as a parent. I am making fun of owning robots to do the specific things you mentioned.

Most of the specific things they mentioned have nothing to do with being a parent, and also apply to people who do not have children.

Instead of building robots, perhaps we should allow low cost care workers to help immobile people. These care workers can be sourced locally or abroad (immigrants). Boom. You've just lifted someone out of poverty and helped an immobile human get a live human care taker.

All well and good until a pandemic comes along.

Live-in caregivers are not going to increase the chances of infection. Other types of caregivers may.

Why the focus on low cost and immigrants? There's millions of people in your country (and I don't even know where you live) that live below the poverty line or are unemployed.

Open up jobs, pay a decent wage, and stop this line of thought about exploiting people as much as possible for as little money as possible.

Why are you equating low cost with exploitation? Why focus on the immigrants when my post _clearly_ mentioned local or immigrants? It is also very disingenuous for you to remark about my location. Clearly, Hacker News is US/Silicon Valley centric. My comment was pointing out that Silicon Valley engineers need to get their heads out of their asses and look at the unemployment not only in the US but rest of the world.

Caregiving is a great job for those who don't have a job. More importantly, SV seems to be forgetting the human component of care giving. A robot _cannot_ possibly take the place of an actual human. It's just not the same.

> Why are you equating low cost with exploitation?

Probably because low cost always seems to mean low income, low status, long hours, and insecure employment.

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